Mariah Carey Says She Got ‘Screwed’ By the Grammys But She’s Not Bitter About It

Mariah Carey is the latest artist to hop aboard the "Grammys Are Irrelevant" train, which has been chugging along for a few years now, especially since singer Frank Ocean announced he was done with "music's biggest night" a couple of years ago.

In a new interview with V Magazine, Carey—a five time Grammy winner— said she's been focused on crafting new music since she signed with Roc Nation management in 2017. She said she hasn't been pressed about meeting any deadlines, specifically for the Grammys.

“In the music business, if you care about the Grammys and submitting your stuff before a certain time frame, you want a single out in the summer, and then you want to have your record [out] before the Grammys [consideration] deadline, which has changed,” she told the magazine. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. I mean, I have five Grammys. That’s cute. There’s people that have been doing this half the time that have twice as many [Grammys]. I won two Grammys the first year I started, but after that, [the Grammys] are like, ‘We don’t go with the people that are selling a lot of records and are popular; we’re gonna go the opposite way.’ So I got screwed out of certain years. I wasn’t bitter about it.”

Drake didn't submit his hugely successful project, More Life for 2018 Grammy consideration either, and veteran rhymer/producer Q-Tip called the institution out this year when A Tribe Called Quest's final album somehow wasn't nominated for any awards. Last year, Beyoncé didn't win Album of the Year for Lemonade, she lost to Adele, which blew everyone's minds (including Adele's) and this year, SZA and JAY-Z were both completely shut out, despite having eight and five nominations respectively. All in all, people have been left wondering about the award show's relevancy, especially as of late.

Beyond the Grammys, Carey talked about working with the Roc Nation team in the interview, and said she's been tossing around ideas about her upcoming project. She specifically spoke about working with JAY-Z, who she collaborated with on her 1999 album, Rainbow on the song "Heartbreaker."

“This is before everybody in the world knew who he was. But we lovers of hip-hop knew who he was, and were very in awe of him, his talent, where he came from, his whole story and everything […]" she said. "We just have a history as friends and as collaborators, so it’s kind of a thing that’s already been established. Now, I’ve been getting to know Jay Brown a lot better: I’ve always known who he was and really respected and admired him so much. The way he does business is just awe-inspiring, you know what I mean? Like, they’ve really done an incredible job together, he and Jay. And they’re both named Jay [laughs]. So we’ve been going back and forth with different writers, different ideas. When I say writers, I mean cowriters, because I am a writer.”